


in your crowded room

by Euphorion



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/F, Infidelity, Peter/MJ pre-het lmao, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Smoking, Vaginal Fingering, college-era, lowkey Peter/MJ kind of but not enough to put it in the tag, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: She was finding it hard to look at anyone who wasn’t Gwen.She was dancing again, her hands in her hair, keeping it up in a blond pile on top of her head and leaving the graceful curve of her neck bare. Ostensibly Flash was dancing with her, but he—understandably— seemed mostly content to sway at her side, drinking her in. Every line of her body seemed to catch the light, fractured as it was into different hues by the disco ball above them. Like some kind of silver fish, gone rainbow in sunlight through clear water. Her dress shifted over her fishnets at the thigh and MJ shifted in response, as if she could feel the contrasting textures against her own skin, cool silk against taught threads.And Peter, Gwen’s beloved boyfriend, was talking about Ned Leeds.
Relationships: Gwen Stacy/Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	in your crowded room

“—guess I’m just not sure what she sees in him,” Peter complained, his fingers skimming over MJ’s side on their way up to fix his hair. 

The touch could’ve been accidental, if she wasn’t well aware that _he_ was aware of every minute gesture of his own body, maybe supernaturally so. Another night, she would have followed up on it, returned the unspoken flirtation, continued the absent sensual game they had going, but tonight she couldn’t make herself care. Nor could she make herself pay any attention to the current objects of Mr. Parker’s ire, Betty Brant and her beau Ned, standing talking across the dancefloor from them. He really _wasn’t_ much to look at, especially in a room that contained both Peter and Flash; so much so that she was finding it hard to look at him at all.

She was finding it hard to look at anyone who wasn’t Gwen.

She was dancing again, her hands in her hair, keeping it up in a blond pile on top of her head and leaving the graceful curve of her neck bare. Ostensibly Flash was dancing with her, but he—understandably—seemed mostly content to sway at her side, drinking her in. Every line of her body seemed to catch the light, fractured as it was into different hues by the disco ball above them. Like some kind of silver fish, gone rainbow in sunlight through clear water. Her dress shifted over her fishnets at the thigh and MJ shifted in response, as if she could feel the contrasting textures against her own skin, cool silk against taught threads.

And Peter, Gwen’s beloved boyfriend, was talking about _Ned Leeds._

MJ took a long sip from her drink. “‘Scuse me, Pete,” she said, flashing a half-smile his way. “Back in two shakes.”

She stepped around him, pressing her glass into Harry’s hand as he came back from the bathroom. “Distract him,” she ordered, jerking her head at Peter.

Harry barely paused, nodding automatically and moving to intercept. _God bless Harry Osborn_ , she thought fondly; for all his faults, he did what he was told.

She ran her nails up Flash’s arm to say hello, and when he turned to her, surprised but pleased, she leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Sorry, handsome,” she said. “Stealing your dance partner.”

Flash laughed, startled. “Sure,” he said, and stepped back.

She’d intended to step up into his place, let the music settle into her bones, fit herself to the rhythm of Gwen’s body in the empty air at her side, but then Gwen noticed her, a sideways flash of blue eyes, and suddenly she couldn’t stand the idea that anyone else would be able to see them, that Flash or Harry or _Peter_ might take the gesture as a antagonistic, as MJ forcing Gwen to share the spotlight. That these men would think it—any of it, any of her, any of _her and Gwen,_ was for them. 

And—stupidly, so stupidly, dangerously stupidly—dancing next to Gwen wouldn’t feel like enough. She wanted to touch.

She reached out and caught Gwen by the wrist, drew her close, tried not to thrill when Gwen didn’t resist. “I need some air,” she murmured against her ear. “Join me?”

She didn’t wait for the answer, stepping back and tugging Gwen through the crowd and out of the club, not letting go until the cool air hit her and banished some of the reckless heat that’d been filling her all night. Gwen freed her wrist with an annoyed little flick, and MJ let herself smirk at her, though she schooled it mean rather than wanting.

Not mean enough, though, because Gwen just rolled her eyes and leaned back against the brick of the building. “What’s up, Mary Jane?”

“Ooh, _Mary Jane,_ ” MJ replied, snapping open her purse and fishing around for a cigarette so she wouldn’t have to meet Gwen’s eyes. “Must’ve really annoyed you if I’m being _Mary Jane’_ d _._ And nothing’s up.” She came up with one, putting it to her mouth and lighting it in one motion. “Like I said, I wanted some air.”

Did Gwen’s eyes track that motion? God. Stop _caring,_ MJ.

Gwen raised her eyebrows. “And I’m here for it, why?” She leaned down to fix her fishnets, her hair slipping from her shoulder and half-curtaining her face as she looked up at MJ. “Don’t tell me you breathe easier with me around.”

MJ drifted closer; she couldn’t help it. She had many gifts; none of them were self-control. “No,” she said quietly. “I really don’t.”

Gwen watched her, unreadable. MJ had to swallow down a bubble of laughter. _Do you know your boyfriend is Spider-Man?_ she wanted to say. _Do you know that I figured that out, I can see it in the way he moves and the things he cares about and the stupid excuses he gives for not being there when we need him, because he’s serving some greater need; do you know I cracked that big important secret wide open but I can’t figure out a damn thing about you until you tell me yourself?_

_Do you know how much more that matters?_

Gwen leaned forward and stole the cigarette from between her fingers, raising it to her mouth.

MJ gasped theatrically. “Gwendolyne Stacy, police captain’s daughter, smoking the _devil’s lettuce._ ”

Gwen’s eyes went wide and she plucked the cigarette from between her lips to stare at it suspiciously while MJ cracked up, laughing way too hard for how stupid the joke was and then laughing even harder when Gwen glared at her. Feeling alive just from the weight of Gwen’s attention.

“Relax,” she said when she’d managed to straighten up. “It’s tobacco, I’m joking.” She ran a hand through her hair, trying to get it under control, and swayed further toward Gwen to take the cigarette back. “It’s not that kind of night.”

Gwen dodged her fingers, bringing the cigarette up over her head and transferring it to her other hand like Flash playing keep-away with some stupid bauble of Harry’s, as if she could ever hope to beat MJ’s height even with her heels. MJ held her eyes while she leaned up to pluck it from her fingers, which was a mistake, because it meant when Gwen asked, “No? What kind of night is it, then?” she did it through her eyelashes, their gazes locked, MJ far, _far_ too inside her personal space.

MJ licked her lips. Gwen’s gaze didn’t waver, but she raised her chin in challenge.

It was—god, it was _such_ a bad idea. MJ was sure that tomorrow, hell, in two hours, hell, in fifteen minutes she’d be able to list sixty-five discrete reasons why it was a bad idea. But in that moment, their fingers tangled against the brick, Gwen’s thigh between her legs, there was no power in the world that could have stopped her from answering that challenge.

Gwen’s hand spasmed against hers the moment their lips met and MJ should have pulled back then, played it off as a joke, even though she’d learned girls didn’t joke like that, not really, not like boys, they just pushed the edges of friendship wider and wider until they encompassed every kind of affection and every kind of touch, blurring and blending them away into meaninglessness.

And that was the problem, of course, that it meant something. Nothing MJ ever did was supposed to mean anything. And yet here she was, kissing Gwen Stacy’s soft, surprised mouth, and meaning it.

She allowed herself one indulgent swipe of tongue, tracing the path along Gwen’s lower lip where she’d watched her apply lipstick earlier that night, and then stepped back. Completely, hands off, leaving the cigarette burning away into nothing between Gwen’s curled knuckles.

Gwen was staring at her, eyes huge and blue. “MJ—”

“Ready to get back to the boys?” MJ asked brightly. She ran her eyes over Gwen’s face like she was checking her makeup for her, not obsessively cataloguing every tiny smear of lipstick that marked where she’d been, and then turned away, a little, using her own shoulder as a wall between herself and that piercing blue gaze and opening her purse again. 

Gwen unpeeled herself from the wall. “You—”

MJ flipped open her compact, avoiding her own eyes in favor of touching up the corners of her mouth. “You asked,” she said, almost but not quite maintaining the lightness of her tone. “I answered.” She snapped the compact closed and tossed it to Gwen. “Don’t take long, your boyfriend’s waiting.” 

Gwen caught the compact, and stood, frozen, and for the first time MJ could tell what she was thinking, if only a little, could see her at a crossroads. She could get angry. She was gorgeously good at being angry, and certainly MJ wouldn’t blame her for doing so. Or: she could pick up what MJ was putting down, say something like _we wouldn’t want his hands to wander,_ step back into their dance, their cardboard rivalry, just a little more certain of how hollow it actually was, and they could pretend this had never happened.

And then Gwen—perfect unpredictable Gwen—chose a third option. She tossed the compact back to MJ without opening it, stepping up after it without giving MJ a chance to get over her surprise, and wrapped a hand in the fabric of MJ’s coat. “Fuck my boyfriend,” she said.

MJ blinked at her. “Pretty sure that’s what you’ve been trying to prevent.”

The look Gwen gave her was so searingly unimpressed it would have turned MJ on even if she hadn’t followed it up by using her grip on MJ’s coat to pull her down and murmur, “take me home, Ms. Watson.”

MJ tucked the compact swiftly into her coat pocket. “Right,” she said hurriedly. “Um. Call a cab.”

She stepped back from Gwen, who blinked at her. “What are you—”

MJ shifted and swayed herself up to one of the men lingering around the entrance to the club. “Hey, stud.”

The guy blinked. He was shorter than her—not unusual—and broad, muscled, both his hands and his feet remarkably large. “Can I help you, dear lady?”

“Yes, actually,” said MJ. “When you go back inside, can you let my friend know that Blondie and I had to bounce?” She jerked a thumb behind her at Gwen. “He’s tall, strawberry blond, dash of freckles across his nose, probably lingering hopefully next to the dance floor even though by rights everybody in there should be fighting over him.”

The dude laughed. “And what should I tell this dreamboat about why his lovely companions have abandoned him?”

MJ very nearly rolled her eyes. Of course she had to pick some kind of weirdly verbose messenger when Gwen was waiting on her, when any moment she might change her mind. She squashed that thought. “Whatever you want,” she said. “Get creative. Oh, and if you want, pass this on.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek, then spun on her heel with a quick, “thanks!”

“No trouble at all,” she heard him say, voice bemused, but Gwen was leaning on the open door of a cab, her hair streaming in the wind, her coat slipped off one moon-pale shoulder. When MJ reached her she gestured her into the cab with a single lift of her brow.

“What was that about?” she asked, sliding after MJ into the back seat.

“Got him to tell Flash we left,” MJ explained, and leaned forward to give her address to the driver. 

When she sat back, Gwen was watching her. MJ raised a questioning brow, braced for the frown, for the guilt to set in, for Gwen to realize what she’d asked for. She wondered if she was following MJ’s train of thought about telling Flash, not Peter or even Harry; that Peter or Harry would ask questions, press on her messenger, but Flash…

“He’s lonely,” Gwen said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

MJ blinked. “Flash? He’s alright.” The deflection was automatic, even though she knew Gwen was right, even though the observation echoed her own thoughts. She felt weirdly protective of him, of his privacy, of his right to be lonely without anyone making a big deal about it. “He’s Flash.”

“Flash Thompson, B.M.O.C,” Gwen murmured, but she didn’t look convinced. 

“Besides, that guy I was talking to was quite a character. Maybe they’ll be friends,” MJ suggested.

“Especially if he passes on that kiss like you asked,” Gwen said, mouth curling upward, and MJ flicked her fingers airily at her.

“But of course,” she said. “Never accomplish one thing when you could accomplish two.”

Gwen shifted, stretching out one leg deliberately across MJ’s lap and leaning over it to fix the buckle on her shoe. “Yeah,” she said, “good advice.”

MJ swallowed, running her fingertips lightly up the underside of Gwen’s calf, toying with the threads of her fishnets. “I’m full of it.”

Gwen smiled at her, wholly without malice, like she was sharing in a joke MJ hadn’t realized she’d made, and MJ wanted so, so badly to feel it against her mouth—a curled sliver of truth, cutting clean through all the performance. “You sure are.”

She paid the driver when they reached their destination—MJ felt a pang, like she should have protested, like this whole insane chain of decisions should be on her, like she should be the one leaving a paper trail—but said nothing, dancing up the stairs to her stoop ahead of Gwen instead.

“Gwenjamin,” she said, her key in the lock.

“Marie-Jeanne,” Gwen countered, one eyebrow arched.

MJ took a breath. “Last chance.”

Gwen rolled her eyes, reached out, and turned MJ’s hand, key and all.

It wasn’t, strictly, MJ’s place. It wasn’t strictly anyone’s place, just one of the many leaseless one-room crash pads for the struggling thespians of the Big Apple, but MJ was the one currently putting the most toward rent so she was the one with the keys. She was suddenly extremely grateful that she’d been putting in some effort to make it presentable, lately, dried flowers on the kitchenette windowsill and clean sheets on the bed.

“Cute,” said Gwen, barely looking at it, and then she was pulling Mary Jane down and kissing her again.

MJ dropped her keys onto the floor in favor of pulling Gwen against her, finally able to run her hands over the small of Gwen’s back, the curve of her ass. Gwen licked into her mouth and MJ sighed, not quite a moan. She wondered briefly if Gwen had done this before, if she’d traded kisses—and more—with girls behind the high school gym like MJ had. 

But then Gwen broke the kiss to nip at her jaw and she decided she didn’t care. “Couldn’t take my eyes off you tonight,” she admitted.

Gwen laughed lightly against her throat. “I noticed.”

MJ kissed her again, humming into it. “And here I thought I was subtle.”

Gwen laughed harder, and MJ shoved at her, crowding her around the half-wall between the kitchenette and the ‘bedroom’. “You saying I can’t be subtle, Miss Stacy?”

“I’m sure you have many skills I’ve never seen you display,” Gwen said, her tone exaggeratedly diplomatic but her blue eyes sparkling. 

MJ kicked off her heels. “I do,” she said, stepping back into Gwen’s space and tilting her head up with fingers at her jaw. “Let’s get you out of that dress and I’ll show you.”

Gwen took a breath, staring up at her, her lipstick and MJ’s smeared across her chin and cheeks, her eyes huge and dark. For an instant MJ wondered if she looked at Peter like this, if he was struck as dumb by it, if it made his heart pound like hers. The thought spiked through her, arousal and envy and distant guilt propelling her forward, open-mouthed, kissing Gwen hard enough that she collapsed backward onto the bed with a little yelp. 

She pulled MJ down with her, hands on her shoulders, nipping and kissing MJ’s lips. MJ ran her hands down her sides, rucking the fabric of her dress up and up at her waist so she could get to her fishnets and then—shoving them down to her knees—the perfect smooth skin of her legs. Gwen took a shuddering breath as MJ ran her nails over her knees and then up between them, stopping just short of her underwear to pinch the inside of her thigh, hard. 

“Fuck,” gasped Gwen, hips twisting. 

“Gorgeous,” MJ muttered, truthfully, sliding to her knees between Gwen’s legs.

Gwen made a throaty, frustrated noise. “MJ—”

MJ slid both hands up her thighs, thumbs making little circles against her skin.

“MJ,” Gwen said again, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Hang on, nnh, slow _down._ ”

MJ stilled. Gwen fought her way upward, her hair falling around her flushed face. “Please,” she said, “just. Can we.”

“Sorry,” MJ said automatically, sitting back on her heels and taking her hands off Gwen’s legs. “Too much—”

“Not what I meant,” Gwen said sharply, and sat forward, cupping MJ’s face in her hands. The only light came from the dim yellow bulb over the entryway, and it made her skin glow soft and golden, a kind of artificial twilight here in the hours before dawn. “I just—I liked the idea of you getting me out of this damn dress, first.” She ran the knuckles of one hand down MJ’s throat to her neckline. “And I want to see you.”

Something about her tone set unexpected nerves alight in MJ’s stomach, and she swallowed, pushing herself to her feet. She’d abandoned her coat on the floor of the kitchen along with her keys, and she now stripped quickly out of her stockings.

Gwen stood, too, freeing herself of her shoes and fishnets and stepping out of her dress. MJ—in the middle of reaching to unzip her own—got caught, just staring, her attention eddying in the dip of Gwen’s navel, in the cleft between her breasts.

Mistaking her pause for frustration, Gwen smiled at her, wrinkling her nose. “Let me,” she said softly, and MJ let her take over, shivering at the almost-touch of the zipper sliding down her spine and the quick twist of Gwen unhooking her bra. She must have also shed her own, because when she slipped her hands into the open back of her dress and pulled MJ back against her there was nothing but skin against skin.

MJ let her head fall back against Gwen’s shoulder. She could feel the hardening points of Gwen’s nipples against her back when she moved, a delicious contrast with the unbelievable softness of her arms, her stomach. “God,” she muttered. “Hi.”

Gwen’s hands were moving, tracing little teasing patterns over her stomach, slipping upward to cup her breasts. “Hiya, babe,” she murmured against MJ’s neck. “Come here often?”

“It’s—” MJ started, and then broke off when Gwen’s questing fingers found her nipples and tugged experimentally. “Nh, it’s been a while.” 

Gwen hummed, like she’d suspected that and didn’t know how to feel about being right. MJ turned in her arms, letting her dress fall to the floor beneath them. “You?” she asked, eyes on Gwen’s face.

Gwen’s lips twitched. “First time in this, uh, neighborhood,” she said, amused but defiant, which both confirmed MJ’s own suspicions and made her pussy clench.

She caught one of Gwen’s hands, toying with her fingers. “Well,” she said. “We’re all very glad you came out tonight. You want to know how glad?”

Gwen’s throat bobbed, but she nodded. “Yeah,” she breathed. 

MJ guided her hand down between her legs, over her underwear, just letting her cup her mound so Gwen could feel how wet she was, the fabric sodden through. Gwen’s eyes went wide. “Fuck, Mary Jane.”

“Oh,” said MJ, “oh, that is a _dangerous_ association you’re making, Gwendolyne.”

Gwen curled her fingers against MJ’s folds, rolling her palm experimentally over her clit, and MJ gasped, wrapped her hand around the back of Gwen’s neck to steady herself. Gwen didn’t stop, just pulled her closer. “Mary Jane,” she said again, her voice wicked. “Show me how you like to be touched, Mary Jane.”

MJ kissed her because she needed to, needed to kiss her more than she needed to breathe, and then folded her hand over Gwen’s. She pressed little kisses to Gwen’s cheek, her jaw, over to her ear. “Put your fingers inside me,” she instructed, breathless, and Gwen made a little keening sound. She fumbled for a moment with getting the fabric out of the way but then she was slowly curling two fingers into MJ and MJ raised one leg, wrapping it around Gwen’s back so she could work them deeper. “Yeah,” she breathed, her hips shifting involuntarily as Gwen pulled out and then pushed back in, slowly, agonizingly slowly. MJ gripped her wrist and sped her up, thrusting against her hand, the angle awkward but the friction so impossibly good, Gwen’s fingers questing, curling, brushing occasionally against the bundle of nerves inside her.

“MJ,” said Gwen urgently, and, god, MJ was going to have to legally change her name because she’d never be able to hear it again, in any configuration, without flashing back here, to this squirming heated desperation and the skin of Gwen’s shoulder against her mouth. “MJ, I want to taste you, can I—”

“Yes,” said MJ immediately, “yes, just—hang on—” and she stumbled backward, pulling Gwen with her until she could perch at the end of the bed. “Don’t trust my legs,” she explained apologetically, pulling her underwear off, but Gwen wasn’t listening, her gaze fixed on MJ’s pussy as she dropped to her knees, tucking her hair behind her ears.

MJ licked her lips and spread her legs wider. “Now you know the carpet matches the drapes,” she joked.

“God,” breathed Gwen, “shut _up,_ ” and she leaned in.

She slipped her fingers back into MJ first, then closed her mouth over her clit, and MJ buried her hands in her hair, absolutely not shutting up, her curses and encouragements blurring together until she wasn’t sure she was even saying words anymore, her vocal chords hooked directly to Gwen’s flickering tongue. She pulled Gwen against her, grinding desperately into her mouth, and Gwen shoved a third finger into her and twisted and the world shattered around her.

She didn’t even realize that Gwen was touching herself with her other hand until she surfaced to find her giving little shuddering gasps against the inside of her thigh. She ran her hands through Gwen’s hair, pushing it back from her face, awed by the desperate concentration on her face, her flushed cheeks. “Yeah,” she sighed, gulping air, sliding her nails over the nape of Gwen’s neck. “Come for me, baby.”

Gwen’s back arched, her mouth opening in a squeaking cry that made MJ’s hips twitch with echoed pleasure. She pulled Gwen up and into her arms, kissing her brow, her jaw, her throat. “Beautiful,” she muttered, “god, so beautiful.”

“Sorry,” Gwen murmured against her temple once she’d gotten her breath back, and MJ pulled back to stare disbelievingly at her. Gwen cracked an eye and laughed at her expression. “I just—I know you wanted—” she blushed harder and cut herself off.

“I did,” MJ agreed, “and I do, I still do.” She pushed herself up on her hands so Gwen was bracketed beneath her. “Who said anything about that being off the table?”

Gwen blinked at her. “But—it. That was intense, I’m not sure I can—”

MJ smirked at her. “You can,” she said, “trust me.”

For a moment Gwen looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, but maybe she wanted MJ to be right more, because she just reached up to pull her down and kiss her. MJ deepened it, licking slow into her mouth, flicking her tongue teasingly against Gwen’s in an imitation of what Gwen had done to her, in a promise.

Gwen moaned, shifting against the sheets, and MJ ran a hand down her side to grip her hip, hard. She shifted her lips to Gwen’s jaw, to the hollow of her throat, kissed her way down her collarbone to the dip between her breasts. She cupped one in the hand not holding Gwen down and took the other nipple into her mouth, laving her tongue over it. Gwen twitched against her grip, her running over MJ’s shoulders, her arms, her back, just directionless needy touch. 

MJ sucked and licked and pinched both of her nipples until they were swollen and reddened, until Gwen was shaking with it, the sweetness of her skin and the impressively foul language dropping from her panting lips both making MJ ridiculously wet again, her own hips twitching lazily against empty air, and then she kissed her way south. Gwen tugged at her hair, trying to speed her up, but MJ was determined to tease, lavishing little kitten licks down the line of her hip-bone, latching her mouth on the inside of her thigh and sucking, hard—tempted, god, so tempted to mark her but relenting.

She bracketed both hands on Gwen’s thighs, opening them wide to make more room for herself. Her pussy was perfect, framed with dark-blonde curling hair, her lips pink and swollen and glistening. 

“MJ,” Gwen said, drawing it out, her voice rising into a whine. “ _Please._ ”

Raising her gaze to meet Gwen’s blue, blue eyes, MJ leaned forward and licked into her.

She kept it slow at first, despite Gwen’s insistent hands, working her tongue into her hole and then up her folds, kissing and licking and worrying them between her lips but leaving her clit untouched. She tasted incredible, sweet and musky and just a little bit sour, and MJ closed her eyes, losing herself in it for a moment, just gathering as much of it as she could on her tongue. Gwen’s thighs twisted and trembled around her head, and slowly MJ worked her way higher, flat-tongued, shifting her grip on Gwen’s legs so she could suck her clit between her lips.

Gwen gave an aborted shout, and when MJ looked up at her she had her wrist over her mouth, her eyes squeezed closed, hard. MJ hummed, running her tongue in circles, and Gwen’s whole body was shaking, shaking, shaking against her. MJ kept going when Gwen’s leg’s clamped around her head, licking her softly and insistently through it, only pulled away when both Gwen’s hands returned to her head and hauled her upward so Gwen could shove her tongue into her mouth.

“Fuck,” Gwen said fervently when she broke the kiss. She wrapped her whole body around MJ’s, clinging and twitching, and MJ tangled their legs together, savoring the delicious wetness against her thigh and pressing her own against Gwen’s. “Fuck,” said Gwen, again.

“Told you so,” said MJ, feeling terribly smug.

Gwen didn’t open her eyes or lift her head from where it was buried in MJ’s neck. “I can’t stand you.”

“I know,” said MJ, and kissed the corner of her eye.

They fell asleep like that, a tired tangle of limbs, and only woke hours later, in proper morning, when the phone on the shoddy bedside table split the silence. Gwen still had MJ in a death-grip, and she made a disapproving noise when MJ tried to free an arm enough to pick it up.

“It’s probably nothing,” MJ assured her, “but someone else might need this place and wants to tell us to shove off.”

“Hmph,” said Gwen, allowing her to move but nuzzling her way up MJ’s back as she leaned over to grab the phone. Her sharp little teeth closed on the nape of MJ’s neck right as she put the receiver to her ear.

“Mary Jane?” Peter asked, voice distracted. 

“Pete, hey,” said MJ, and Gwen froze. “What can I do you for?”

“Is Gwen there? Flash said—”

“Yeah, she’s here,” MJ said lightly. “Say hi, Gwendy.” She twisted to put the phone next to Gwen’s ear.

Gwen squeezed her eyes closed. “Hi, Peter,” she said quietly.

MJ took the phone back before any more of _that_. “Why?”

“I—oh, it’s you again,” said Peter, sounding annoyed. “Well—tell her I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to meet up with her tonight, something’s come up.”

“Typical,” said MJ. _Don’t die,_ thought MJ. “Anyway, glad to hear Flash got my message.”

“Yeah,” said Peter. “What’d you tell him? He was all pink about it.”

MJ smirked. “Oh, good, he got all of it, then. Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Or about your date—I think I can come up with something to keep her occupied.”

Gwen made a face at her. MJ winked, refusing to feel any of the guilt that loomed outside of this room until she absolutely had to.

“Is she feeling better?” Peter asked.

MJ bit her lip and thought quickly. Stupid, not to give that guy a prepped lie, but she’d been distracted, stressed that she might—might never get _here,_ Gwen a gorgeous tangle of hair and limbs in the sheets next to her. _Play vague, MJ._ “Yeah, she’s groovy,” she said. “Just passing dizziness—dehydration, I think. You saw her out there, dancing the night away.” She let a smirk creep into her voice. “Some people don’t have the stamina for that kind of showboating, I guess.”

“Mmm,” Peter said, mind clearly elsewhere, and MJ let out a silent breath. “Thanks for having her back, MJ. I owe you one.”

“Damn right,” MJ said, and hung up.

Gwen raised her eyebrows at her. “Masterfully done.”

“Why, Gwen,” Mary Jane murmured, leaning down over her again. “I’m an actor. And, secondarily, a very good liar.”

She knew Gwen would ask, eventually. Or maybe she wouldn’t even ask, maybe she’d skip right past _what is this, what are we doing,_ to _this was fun but I can’t, you know I can’t._ But selfishly, mulishly, MJ refused to make it easy for her—easy for Peter, on the other end of the phone line, on the other end of a web line somewhere, flinging himself into oblivion with barely a thought for the girl in MJ’s arms. He had his secret, why shouldn’t Gwen have hers? 

And MJ in the middle, keeping both.

Gwen reached up, tangling her fingers in MJ’s hair and holding her still, her gaze searching MJ's face. “Not to me,” she said, almost a question.

MJ let her eyes slip closed, turned her face to press a kiss to the heel of Gwen’s hand. “No,” she said. “Not to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Needed to write something less plotty than the X-Men fic I'm struggling through, so. This happened.
> 
> Thank you Gerry Conway for confirming that MJ loved Gwen first :) also thanks to sydney @gleesquid for forever associating Taylor Swift's "Dress" with these two, which is where I stole the title from.
> 
> The dude outside of the bar, if the big feet and weird verbosity didn't give it away, is Hank McCoy! Bc I was trying to think of who would be cute to lowkey flirt with Flash in the 70s in a NYC club before any of my preferred Flash-boyfriends (other than Peter) were around.


End file.
